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AC alias Big Cat has a sister site www.ACknowledge.com.au, where articles about Aceh/Asian tsunami reconstruction demonstrate a knowledge site.

Australia (News) - Chatterpillar

Not true that top cleric's 'meaty' sermon will go unpunished

October 26th 2006 22:58

World headlines this morning say Australia's top Muslim cleric will not be punished over a sermon in which he likening scantily-dressed women to uncovered meat and saying they're responsible for sexual attacks.
A group of senior Muslims from Sydney's Lakemba Mosque decided last night to accept the argument put by Sheikh Taj Eldin al-Hilaly that his comments were taken out of context from his sermon and that the sermon was targeted against men and women who engaged in extra-marital sex and did so through alluring types of clothes. Reference BBC



Actually, it's not true that he won't be punished. Punishment started yesterday with news that the Federal Government will no longer be asking him to be an advisor to officials and official meetings. Source


And State politicians are calling for tougher action. "Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man… their leader in court," said Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner and New South Wales Liberal Party candidate, Pru Goward. She does not believe the sheikh can backtrack over his comments and insists he could be guilty of incitement to the crime of rape and should be deported.
Source ABC



Meantime the Muslim community has fears ordinary Australians will punish them for their leader's "meaty" views. "I am expecting a deluge of hate mail," said Walid Ali of the Islamic Council of Victoria. "I am expecting people to get abused in the street and get abused at work." Source
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Why are aid donations lagging despite Aussies being richer?

October 25th 2006 23:51
A SMH report yesterday by Matt Wade throws light on Australians and donor fatigue. "Aussie households spent $573 billion last year but we gave less than one-500th of that to organisations helping the world's poorest people. Despite the public response early last year to help victims of the tsunami we still spent about twice as much on chocolate than on overseas aid last year."

Wade quoted from a Washington DC think tank called Centre for Global Development, which rated Australia sixth in aid spending and trade, investment, migration, environment and security issues - behind Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and New Zealand per capita.

Australia's ranking fell three places since 2003. See the full SMH report.

Aid tragedy in the making
Donor fatigue takes the blame alongside government inaction for the latest aid tragedy in the making - some 800,000 Javanese still without a roof after the 27 May 06 Yogyakarta earthquake as the heavy November rains are about to start.

There are worries this could create a health crisis if many medical groups leave, says Voice of America (VOA) reporter, Chad Bouchard, in his locally researched report "Indonesian Earthquake Survivors Still Lack Shelter as Rainy Season Approaches".

His report says the rate of acute respiratory infection in worst-affected Bantul is five to six times higher than normal. As the wet season approaches, health officials expect that number to rise. Dengue fever and malaria also thrive in rainy conditions.

- Pic from VOA report -
Bouchard quotes locals disillusioned about Indonesian Government delay in acting on world donations to the 27 May earthquake. He also talked to aid organisation and UN people on the ground, who told him that donor fatigue by first world people has left aid organisations with a shortfall in the funding.
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Grimy reporters did it to her like Lindy, Denton's interview with Joanne Lees exposes

October 9th 2006 23:18
-ABC pic of Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees-

Nuts to you editors who let your reporters try and do a "Lindy Chamberlain" on the reputation of the quietly spoken, brave young woman.

Especial nuts to the reporter who sneakily worked through Joanne's mother to get her only interview - who still couldn't resist the grimy question: "And did you kill Peter Falconio?"

We all know that sensationalism sells, which is why newspaper editors favour reports that get the grime. But what ever happened to the notion of "balance" that used the keep the bastards (earlier report) honest?

Joanne Lees, the travel partner of missing back-backer Peter Falconio, decided that writing her own book would be the safest way to tell her story, to remove the doubt cast in the minds of the Australian public that she might have killed Falconio.

Her preference not to trust her story to a ghost-writer makes sense, if you heard her answers on last light's "Enough Rope" to Andrew Denton's questions about the media coverage.

If you missed the interview, the transcript should be on abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/ soon. But here's an overview from someone who did watch it, and for busy readers to save the time of reading the transcript.

Lee's personality came across as honest, with an open face, no longer blushing with naivety as she would have before life's experience of ordeal with the would-be rapist and now imprisoned, convicted felon.

The TV showed his picture. No wonder she felt evil in his presence and bravely fought to escape. Wearing just shorts, shoes and a T-shirt, she didn't feel the outback's winter night cold until the five hours ordeal of hiding out from him under bushes was over.

Resolute to flag down only a road-train rather than risk stopping a car that might be the villain again, she was taken to a road house - only to wait more agonising hours until finally the police arrived. The tension was huge because she wanted to get them started on searching for Falconio, who she loves.

She told them her story - that she managed to escape from the back of the vehicle, still manacled, using last reserves of energy that came with the absolute determination that she was not going to let herself be raped.

How these things drag on. No sign of Falconio from searching. Months became years. Then finally the news which she got in England. NT police had a murder suspect, whom she immediately recognised as the villain from the photo.

Now she had a real name, Bradley John Murdoch, for the man who until then she had known not as the villain, but coward.

Too much suffering already? Yes, especially considering that no one thought to offer her grief counselling. (Remember Falconio, her love and travel companion that has never been found to this day.)

But no, our intrepid ranks of journalists had to make it worse for her, reporting the cowardly defence at Murdoch's trial, which tried to character-assassinate her by "grime" about her and another lover in Australia at the time, to cast doubt that she might have been the one to kill Falconio.

Who to believe, her or the coward?

Already the Falconio family believed her. She's been made part of the family.

Now from the trial, the jurists believed her - and the judge castigated the defence lawyers for the most cowardly of defence strategies.

Thank you Joanne Lees for writing the book. Thank you Andrew Denton for letting viewers preview the story with proper balance so that we can believe her too.
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Indonesian official asks Howard for more tsunami reconstruction help - bureaucrats and press mute about the Canberra meeting Wednesday

September 15th 2006 00:49

The press has missed an opportunity to probe Australia’s aid help to Indonesia at a time when Aussie public opinion is running high over the death sentences that Indonesian appeal court judges imposed arbitrary on convicted Australian drug runners - Scott Rush in particular.
Previous posting (7 Sep 06
[ Click here to read more ]
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